An Introductory Tirade

The evolution of digital animation overshadowed the real reason why Pixar brought Disney to its knees: Pixar's willingness to inject intelligence into their films. Disney at least shows intelligence when it comes to business, and acquired Pixar when it saw the writing on the wall. An earlier example of Disney being smart enough to buy the intelligence it lacks came in 1996 when Disney acquired distribution rights for Studio Ghibli, the production company of famed Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki.

If Pixar's films can bear up under thoughtful viewing, Miyazaki's work shines when watched with mind wide open.

Now I'm not saying this is art house fare. It's good, not pretentious. It requires patience, not the secret decoder ring the intelligentsia receive for their membership fees. Miyazaki films deserve thought, but they are still for children – and a child whose capacity for thought hasn't been drilled out of them by attention-deficit-inducing school bells and Saturday cartoons is fully equipped to bring the best out of their viewing experience.


Studio Ghibli's Whisper of the Heart

Our family are huge Hayao Miyazaki fans, but this is the first time we've tried anything from another of Ghibli's directors. Miyazaki does receive a screenwriting credit, but Yoshifumi Kondo directs this 1995 film. (Once seen as Miyazaki's eventual successor, Kondo would die of an aneurism three years later.)

The story is simple: Shizuku is a bookworm who notices that the same boy's name keeps appearing on the check-out slips for her library books. Who is this person that seems to share her interests? It's a romantic mystery until Shizuku discovers that this boy, Seiji, is a "stupid jerk."

Initial dislike is a well-used trope in romantic comedies, and one way to look at Whisper of the Heart is as a romantic comedy for tweens. But one of the things that romcoms and Disney princess movies have in common is the shallowness of their love. Sure there are obstacles. Initial dislike, misunderstandings, and other suitors, whether threatening or comical. But the entire point is just to get the lovers together. Of course they live happily ever after because simply getting together and being in love is all there is to it. Once they've done that the movie ends. There's no room in it for anything else.

Whisper of the Heart lives in the real world, where love is complicated not just by obstacles, but also by positive complexities. One of the reasons why Shizuku and Seiji's love is so wonderful is because of the way it ennobles and elevates them. Inspired by Seiji's determination to become a master violin maker, Shizuku decides to pursue her dream of becoming a writer. She doesn't just twirl around in the woods singing about her prince. When she falls in love she gets to work.

And this isn't just a way to show how love can be inspiring. Whisper of the Heart also has something to say about art and the creative calling. After she finishes her story and Seiji's grandfather reads it Shizuku breaks down bawling. Why? She's dreamed of being a writer. She finally writes something. And she's told that it's pretty good, that it has promise. Why the despair?

She cries because she knows it's not perfect, and when you feel you have a calling "good" is not good enough. With the advice of Seiji's grandfather Shizuku quietly overcomes this emotional crisis, and this is the climax of the movie. This the climax of an animated children's film! Not a race, not an explosion, not even a kiss!

In a way both Shizuku and Seiji fail at their dreams. Or at least they learn that their dreams will require a lifetime of work, but they look forward to traveling that hard road together. How much more meaningful is that that ramming a ship into Ursula's belly or sending Gaston off the palace wall?

If American children's films approach love simplistically, American adult and teen films reduce it to a bodily function. I have trouble thinking of anything that finds an appropriate middle road between these two, but Whisper of the Heart is both innocent and meaningful. If a movie is going to influence the meanings my prepubescent children attach to life and love, then I can't think of a better movie to expose them to.

Aligned with the serious, real, and uplifting approach Whisper of the Heart takes to love and art are all the rich details that keep Ghibli at the top of the animated world. The patience for realistic details that might never be noticed, as when an exhausted Shizuku bats at the lamp switch until she finally has to sit up and find it. The beauty of every background, whether the rich interior of the antique shop with its hanging violins or the ornate views of Tokyo from a hillside. And of course the splendor of the fantasy sequences when Shizuku imagines her story, or the quiet way in which the "magical" cat statue seems to move slightly whenever nobody's looking.

This quiet attention can also be seen in the complexity of this world, where class distinctions are apparent and the financial struggle of Shizuku's family is felt but not commented on, a reflection of the stagnation of Japan's economy throughout the nineties.

Honesty takes time, and Whisper of the Heart is willing to spend it on these details, and on its characters and its themes. It lacks Disney's and Pixar's action and flash, it also lacks the magic of Miyazaki's fantasies, but if anyone wondered whether an animated film for tweens could succeed at being serious, this is their answer: a movie that gives childhood aspirations and romance legitimate consideration, enough so that I find the movie speaks more to me about things that truly matter than most "adult" films even attempt to say.

That's the kind of movie this is, and if you have enough respect for your kids it's the kind of movie you will want them watching.


- Panguitch


My review of Hayao Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky: http://www.epinions.com/review/mvie_mu-1119957/content_332160470660

Recommended:
Yes